Finally, the Belleville News-Democrat files a dispatch in its continuing coverage of tort "reform" issues that doesn't read like a talking points memo from the big business lobby. In "Medical malpractice suits filed by two area doctors," by Beth Hundsdorfer, we learn of two doctors from St. Clair County, Illinois, who were "so seriously injured after their surgeries that they could no longer practice medicine themselves." Both doctors have sued their doctors. In Hundsdorfer's apt phrase, "the scalpel cuts both ways."
Meanwhile, last Thursday's edition of the Alton Telegraph contained a Letter to the Editor (unfortunately not available online) from Gail Siegel, Executive Director of Chicago's Coalition for Consumer Rights, who raised the issue of "possible mismanagement at the state's largest medical malpractice insurer--the Illinois State Medical Insurance Exchange." According to Siegel, Donald Udstuen, the COO of ISMIE from 1991 to 2002, until he was indicted in Operation Safe Road, received $4.85 million in severance pay. Siegel calls on area legislators to investigate "Udstuen's legacy at ISMIE and the Illinois State Medical Society," for whom Udstuen was the chief lobbyist in the state capital from the 1970's until last year.
Siegel's letter concludes, "Doctors whose rates have been climbing should be outraged and demanding to know why."
Shouldn't that be $4.85 MILLION ?
Posted by: Norma Mendoza | March 25, 2004 at 07:28 PM